Chilled by the prospect of losing that opportunity in British Columbia, U.S. trophy hunters are digging deep to ensure the reelection of Premier Christy Clark.

As the Canadian chapter of Safari Club International explained in a Facebook post last Friday, “NDP have vowed to end the Grizzly hunt in BC if elected. SCI chapters from CANADA and the USA banded together donating $60000.00” (sic).

The payment appears to be made out to the Guide Outfitters Association of British Columbia, an organization known for inviting BC Liberal ministers to bizarre minstrel shows and giving them lots of money.

The Guide Outfitters lobby vigorously to maintain a commercial grizzly bear “harvest” in British Columbia, which attracts wealthy customers from around the world.

The Safari Club photo offers a rare glimpse into how the B.C. Guide Outfitters fund their political war chest. “Together working with GOABC to prevent the NDP from getting elected and ending the hunt,” says the caption.

It is unclear whether the money will be donated directly to the BC Liberals or pay for other anti-NDP activities.

B.C. Premier Christy Clark is a vocal supporter of the trophy hunting industry and a past winner of the Guide Outfitter association’s President’s Award.

The BC Liberals have refused to change the province’s political financing laws, which allow them to take unlimited money from corporations and wealthy donors anywhere in the world.

Ouch. I hope u are joking? Animals are not there for humans to play with. They are beautiful sentient beings…and we have the honor to share the earth with them, not to control and hunt them. The extent of this kind of ego is what will cause the demise of all large mammals and ultimately humanity.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Please end the partnership between the Canadian Government and Safari Club International. This is an historical partnership that is needing to be ended.
It is 2016, and wildlife is under severe threat.
Thanks for bringing progressive ideas to Canada. Hopefully they extend to include this oversight.

PLEASE NOTE: this article is about the British Columbia provincial government. The Liberal party in BC is NOT the same party as the federal Liberals: the policies of the BC “Liberals” are copied straight from the playbook of Stephen Harper, displaying an equal disdain for humans and animals alike. They are a teacher-hating, health-care cutting, union-busting, anti-environmentalist bunch of corrupt politicians, bought and owned by the oil pipeline and gas fracking companies. This is only one of a wide array of exploitative resource businesses who bribe – er … make party donations – the BC Provincial Liberals to open BC up for full-on rape and pillage.

I genuinely hate to be pedantic – but these differences actually matter in terms of who we hold accountable for such corruption.

The fallout from the conflict of interest (hunters employed as conservationists) is significant and requires urgent action if we are to save wildlife.
This is what is going on:
• Working agreements between USFWS and Safari Club International (and likely others like Dallas Safari Club, etc.)
• Eradication of predators in order to justify killing next in line as required in order to maintain ecological balance etc.
• Failure to completely prevent hunting of elephant, rhino, lion, wolf and other endangered species
• Failure to list endangered species as endangered in order to keep hunting
• Passing laws with loop holes that allow American hunters to continue killing elephant and other African wildlife
• Hunt clubs directly paying significantly large funds to “researchers” in order to support hunting. (Eg, Dallas Safari Club payments to WildCRU in Oxford)
• Hunt Clubs like Safari Club International, Dallas Safari Club and others mislabeling themselves as “conservation” organizations and “philanthropists” in order to attain 501 (c) status as non-profit organizations. They are hunters, not conservationists, and are certainly not philanthropic in any way.
• The 501 (c) designation allows them to be classified as “charitable” organizations and to receive “donations” as charities from citizens making purchases on websites like Amazon Smile and other vendors.
• The associations between Safari Club International, Dallas Safari Club and USFWS are so close as to be inseparable.
• The director of USFWS is a hunter and flaunts this online and in his associations with hunt club leadership.
• SCI and USFWS jointly approach African Governments for “secret meetings”.
• World Wildlife Fund (WWF) is similarly tainted, likely as a direct result of the conflict of interest occurring at a higher level, namely at the USFWS / SCI / DSC level.
• This leads to the abuse of WWF donations in order to sustain the practice of hunting.
• In Namibia for example, WWF has encouraged hunting to be sustained to the shock and horror of charitable donors.
• African corruption has its roots in the conflict of interest in the US systems.
• Connections with the gun industry and NRA are also likely involved
• All petitions relating to the conflict of interest end up being destroyed by the director of USFWS and there appears to be no independent oversight of USFWS or other conservation organizations
• All conservation downstream are implicated because they go along with the charade and are too afraid to speak up. Possibly because they are unaware of the relatively easy opportunity to enhance conservation efforts.

YES! That’s exactly. If you want to trophy hunt – go ahead… but don’t do it like a coward from atop a jeep or other protected vehicle with a long distance scope and rifle…. get down and dirty… hand to hand combat with a Griz. If you win – you live and get to keep the pelt. If you lose… then balance has been restored to the world.

Guide outfitters claim those of us who want to make BC a Grizzly sanctuary are just acting on emotion, not science. But those who shoot Grizzlies are just after the emotional thrill and the emotional boost to their egos in their trophy rooms, they don’t have science on their side. There’s little to learn from looking at bears through a rifle scope. The ministry has gagged their own biologists who state the hunt is unsustainable

Our grizzly hunt in BC (aka authorized licences issued to hunters) is based on science, not emotional opinions from keyboard warriors who have never seen a grizz in real life. It is a sustainable hunt. Less than 2% of the population is killed annually (I believe 2015 or 2016 was 287 g bears) and biologists say that our BC populations can sustain a 6% harvest rate. We can all agree there is not adequate funding for our biologists, but if anything the population estimates are flawed on the low side, they are conservative numbers. This is one of the most scrutinized and managed hunts in North America.

All the animal activists claim they care about animals, so that’s why they aggressively try to shut down hunts with propaganda and their Walt Disney anthropomorphism BS…..I’ve never seen any animal activists cleaning up streams and creeks with my fish and game clubs. How much have you donated to protect wild land areas? Do you participate in wildlife audits with your local bio’s? Are you aggressively fighting against industry pollution and poor logging practices?

Eric Mortimer that is just your personal view. There are many people who make a difference in this province every day protecting our environment and animal conservation and still don’t support killing for sport.
Some people dont need stats and donations to know its wrong to kill just for the sake of killing.

Trophy hunting is resulting in the decimation of Africa’s wildlife as the “legal” trade fuels demand for the body parts of wild animals, which in turn results in an increase in the illegal killing of wildlife even in countries that have banned trophy hunting, like my country Kenya. Now there is a strong lobby from white ranchers and the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT received US$20 million from USAID in 2017), and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) to reintroduce trophy hunting in Kenya. We need help to fight trophy hunting in Africa before it completely wipes out our beautiful African wildlife. We are appealing for linkages with existing groups lobbying against this blood sport.

Hi Violet, We do not have a campaign against trophy hunting at Dogwood. We wrote this piece in regards to our Ban Big Money campaign to highlight the political donations that are linked to trophy hunting lobbyists. Good luck!

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